by Rex Bolt
A Giants baseball game came on, against the Philadelphia Phillies, which was pretty weird since it was from Candlestick Park, which they had abandoned years ago in real time. His dad told him stories about the place, how windy and cold it got, and Pike could see on TV everyone bundled up tonight like they were in the Arctic Circle, while it was it was currently in the 80’s in Chico.
Speaking of baseball, Pike noticed one interesting thing when he was cruising the newspaper at breakfast this morning. The minor league team, the Chico Buttes, which he used the stadium photo from to help him get here (he still wasn’t a big believer in that kind of gimmick but he couldn’t argue, because something did work)--anyhow, he learned the Chico Buttes practice in Orland.
Not a big deal, but that might explain how Orland came into the equation and why he landed there instead of directly in Chico. Who knows.
The Giants game went to extra innings, and Pike started dozing off, and he was comfortably in the state right before you launch into a deep sleep . . . when there was a pounding on the door.
This was no tapping, like with Rose this afternoon, this packed some urgency. Not good.
Pike tip-toed to the corner of the window and eased back the curtain just a touch, and you couldn’t see great because of the angle of the outside lighting right in his face, but it sure looked like Mr. Milburn.
Pike carefully opened the door, and Mr. Milburn offered his hand, and Pike shook it and he came in.
“I’d like thank you,” Preston said. “Of course, what that would be for, I don’t know.”
This could get ugly. Pike was acutely regretting answering the door.
“First thing,” Pike said, trying to lighten the mood, “I’d offer you some pizza, but I ate it all. How about some coffee though?”
Mr. Milburn wasn’t interested. “You have a lot of nerve,” he said. “You waltz into town, you start running some game on us . . . We’re decent people. Who in the hell gives you that right, boy?”
Wow, the boy part tacked on. This was a way different side of Milburn than he’d seen, even when he was drunk and crazy that time on their anniversary and Pike and Hannamaker had to restrain him.
And he continued. “You say you were Class of ‘92, is that correct?” Not waiting for an answer. “Two years behind us . . . So I checked with some folks. No one’s ever heard of you. But you figured we’d find that out sooner or later, didn’t you . . . And it doesn’t bother you.”
Pike tried to put his hand on Preston’s shoulder, but he slapped it away. “My wife, I’ve never seen her so hysterical, so twisted . . . And now she’s accusing me of pulling something . . . Do you know she could leave me? . . . And you’d have blood on your hands, boy.”
Pike said, “She’s not going to leave you. That cannot happen . . . And you can’t let it.” Praying he had that right.
Mr. Milburn cleared this throat and then reached into his right front pants pocket, as casually as he might have been grabbing his wallet, and pulled out a small revolver and pointed it at Pike.
Pike was stunned but managed to spread his hands and put them up.
Preston said, “Long as you convince me you’ll be leaving town, in juusst a minute here, nice and peaceful--never, ever to be to interfering in our business again--then we’re good.”
“Yeah, I’m planning to leave pretty soon,” Pike said, keeping a good eye on Mr. Milburn’s pistol, which was moving around a bit.
“So you mind spitting out what your deal is, pal? . . . ‘Cause no matter how I work it around, it doesn’t quite add up.”
Pike was nervous, and it was hard to think, but he tried to get it right. He said, “Well . . . do believe in UFO’s? Or what about God, do you believe in Him? . . . Or angels? . . . Forces of nature? . . . Or how about freaks of nature? You open-minded to any of that stuff?”
Pike wasn’t sure how he felt about most of it, and he didn’t like getting heavy with people, but it seemed necessary now.
“I have my beliefs, but they’re private,” Preston said.
“You wouldn’t think,” Pike said, “in a dumpy motel room like this, you’d find a picture on the wall that summed it up, but you have to admit . . .” He pointed toward the wall where the TV was, to the right of Mr. Milburn, and when Mr. Milburn turned toward it for just an instant, Pike’s hand shot out and he grabbed Preston’s wrist that was holding the gun, and pinned it against his leg.
He carefully pried the pistol away. Mr. Milburn didn’t fight him very hard. He seemed defeated, and to be accepting it. It was as though he’d been putting on an act that he wasn’t comfortable with.
Pike knew a little bit about firearms, not from his dad, who was scared to death of them and didn’t believe ordinary citizens should have access to them, but from his Uncle Pete, who had a small ranch up near Nevada City. Pike spent a summer up there when he was 14, and Uncle Pete was patient with him and taught him a lot, including weapon safety.
Pike told Mr. Milburn to please sit down for a moment, and he laid the revolver on the bureau and carefully unloaded the six chambers.
Then he picked it back up and walked over to Preston, who just for an instant seemed to fear for his life before realizing that was irrational.
Pike said, “Those questions you were asking, they were good ones. Very fair. That would have been me too, if the tables were turned.”
Preston’s hands were shaking now.
“Relax . . . please,” Pike said. “What you’re concerned with, I’m sorry, I can’t give you a straight answer . . . But look-at here.”
And with that, he held out the butt of the gun in his right hand, and the barrel in his left, and then he squeezed in opposite directions, and the thing bent into a very ugly-looking U-shape.
Pike handed it back to Mr. Milburn. “Simplest thing,” Pike said, “take good care of her. And please stay away from the central valley . . . In fact moving out of state, that’d be by far your best bet . . . You have to trust me on that.”
Mr. Milburn absent-mindedly accepted the gun and stuck it back in his pants, and flew out of there fast enough where he might have set a record for departing motel rooms.
Pike stood still for a while, and took a little stock of what happened today.
Was it good enough?
It was going to have to be.
You couldn’t google anything to confirm it of course, but his impression from the photo of the Chico Buttes’ stadium was that it was pre-1956. Everything was wooden benches, no backs on the seats, and there was a funky-looking overhang that was supported by pretty-ancient-looking posts.
For a second he thought oh no though, there’s probably another game tonight, but then he realized how late it was, and that there hopefully wouldn’t be anyone still around.
The ballpark was down past the fairgrounds. Pike wasn’t sure how far that was, but he knew which direction--you exited the motel and hung a left.
He could walk it, or jog it, like he had a few times lately, but that all sounded like too much work right now. So he called an old-fashioned taxi, and the guy showed up a few minutes later and didn’t seem to pay any attention to who Pike may or may not be, and before long he’d paid the guy and was hunting around the stadium for a good spot. All the lights were off but the side door happened to be to open to the snack bar, and you could smell the hotdogs from earlier in the evening, and Pike closed it behind him and thought of Frankie the librarian wishing him Godspeed.
Chapter 20
He opened his eyes to the sounds of people running and, sticks hitting a ball, it sounded like, and then the running and sticks stopped and there was a lot of female laughing.
He looked around and saw that he had indeed landed right on the emblem at the 50-yard-line of the Hamilton football field, admittedly nice familiar turf, except he was in the middle of a girls P.E. class that was going on, and they were playing field hockey. Which had ground to a halt.
“Excuse me, Mr. Gillette, . . . what could you possibly be doing here?�
�� It was Ms. Lord, the girls P.E. teacher, but luckily Pike had her for art one semester, so she knew him and was a good sport.
“It’s crazy,” he said. “I’m not sure.”
A bunch of the P.E. girls started laughing again, and Pike was relieved that he recognized a few of them, and he also took a glance at the scaffold where the letter H had been that he ripped down, and it was still down, so he was convinced things were current.
Just to be sure though, he posed the question to Ms. Lord, “Time and date please?”
She shook her head but informed him it was 1:07 on December 8th, and that this party was now officially over and he needed to get his ass back to class pronto. She didn’t use that word, but still.
Pike thanked her and walked back to the main building. Things had held up. He’d left at a little after 11, and given the one-hour-per-day business, his inbound effort had been right on the money. A grand total of two hours away from Beacon.
He didn’t have any books or notebooks with him, but it didn’t matter and he finished off the last two-and-a-half periods of the day without a problem.
One guy he wanted to find after school was Hannamaker, and he looked for his car in the parking lot but didn’t see it. Jack drove a 20-year-old blue Honda, but then a few minutes later Hannamker comes lumbering along and starts getting into a beat-up Ford Bronco.
Which, given the history of these things, wasn’t totally surprising now and was probably no big deal.
Pike called over to him. “Yo, what’s up man,” Jack said. “I may be in The Box later, not sure.” This was very good to hear, that whatever Pike may have done in Chico didn’t throw off The Box.
“Listen,” Pike said, “can I talk to you a second?”
“Help yourself. But I have to stop by my house real quick, and then head over to Alicia’s.”
Wait a second. Alicia? Who Pike had gone out with for about a weekend? Dang.
“How long has that been going on?” Pike said.
Jack gave him a funny look. “What are you talking about? I don’t know, six, seven months, whatever . . . You got a problem with it, all of a sudden?”
“No, not a problem . . . just . . . whatever happened to Cathy, is all.”
“Cathy Carlisle? Dude, what’s going on with you? She’s hooked up with Foxe . . . If I didn’t know you so well, I’d say you just dropped in from Mars, or some shit . . . But I gotta go.”
Unbelieveable. Cathy and Foxe.
Pike said, “Can you . . . swing by Birch and Ortega? . . . Drop me off there?”
“That’s fine,” Jack said, “just get in.”
When Jack had driven away, Pike stayed there on the corner for a while, and then slowly, deliberately, began walking the half-block to Audrey’s house.
As he got close, his heart was racing and he tried to take deep breaths but those didn’t work. It was going to require some fortitude to ring the bell, but it had to be done.
He heard footsteps and then a pause, as though someone was looking through the peephole before they opened the door.
A girl’s voice, enthusiastic, said, “Oh hey Pike,” and he froze, and she opened the door. “What are you doing at my house?” she said.
It was someone he didn’t recognize.
He couldn’t answer for a minute, he just stared at her to make sure she wasn’t, in any way shape or form, Audrey. Or Hailey.
“I’m thinking, “ he said, “that I got the wrong address.”
“Well who were you looking for then?” she said, with a touch of disappointment.
“The Milburns.”
She scrunched up her face. “I’m trying to place them,” she said. “I know most of the neighbors, and I’m sorry that doesn’t ring a bell.”
“What about . . . at Hamilton,” he said, “Audrey, or Hailey?” Figuring this girl had to go there if she knew him.
Also fearing her answer, it dawning on him like a ton of bricks that hey, maybe they did move back, but into a different house.
“No. Sorry . . . You want to come in, or something? You look cold.”
Pike thanked her and said he’d take a rain check.
Normally he wouldn’t be crazy about having to walk home from here, but tonight it was okay. Halfway there he realized he’d been so caught up in his project that he hadn’t checked his messages since last night.
There was one from Mitch, and another from Dani. Maybe not the greatest, that second one.
Then there were a bunch from someone named Jocelyn.
He’d deal with them all in due time, but not tonight. It was starting to get dark, and there were Christmas lights coming on here and there. It was his favorite time of year, and he was missing Audrey, but wherever she was, she was in a better place.
THE END
*****
Pike Gillette Returns in:
Time Games (Book 3)
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Copyright © 2018 Rex Bolt
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, organizations, events or locales, or to any other works of fiction, is entirely coincidental.
